[ponker]

Cisco and HP Halo were incredible but the biggest problem they had was 1) the requirement to build out an actual room for it and 2) the shitty software setup experience. The big corporates that could afford to build out real estate for VCs also bogged the shit down in "enterpriseyness" that made the shit impossible to use.

[Cerium]

About 10 years ago I go to go on a tour of the Taiwan HP office. One thing that stands out in my mind was the telepresence rooms. Absolutely fabulous, large table, with screens across the table that showed high fidelity low latency image of whoever was sitting at a connected table.

[pfranz]

Latency was still a huge issue with the HP Halo. I remember a specific meeting where they talked about upgrading the audio codec which didn't seem to address things much. It was kind of a running joke that any applause or laughter would and with a huge, noticable lag between locations.

[wil421]

I worked at a company that had a Cisco telepresence machine on wheels. You had to make sure it was plugged into a certain color Ethernet wall jack for it to work but every room had one. You could reserve it and then wheel it to the conference room you wanted.

[ponker]

That's nothing like a Cisco telepresence room. You have to have used one to understand. It's nothing too sci-fi -- not floor to ceiling curved displays or whatnot -- but just the multiple large TVs all in a curved setup on the other side of a curved table makes a huge difference.

[glandium]

And a standardized wall color and camera location, so that everyone that joins in from another telepresence room blends in as if they were really there.

[fludlight]

Here's a picture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_TelePresence#/media/File...

[glandium]

It would seem like they relaxed rules about what's in the background. But then, my knowledge is from a Telepresence room having been setup at a previous employer somewhere between 10 and 15 years ago (and I wasn't directly involved).

[blackrock]

It would be interesting if a camera was on top of every tv, so that you have a 1-to-1 with every recipient.

That way, when you turn your head to the person on each tv, it would seem as if you were actually looking at them.

[glandium]

Getting off topic here, but this makes me think of what can be seen now in some Japanese programs because of social distancing measures. I don't know what kind of setup they have, but in some programs, from the spectator's perspective, you see people lined up behind a table, but some of them are actually on large monitors that make them appear at the right size. The interesting thing is that the ones on monitors act like if they were actually there, turning their head in the direction of the person speaking.